As if!she thought.A guard placed there to keep me prisoner.
There was a knock on the door. Izzy hesitated, not sure if she should answer it. But it came again, hard and insistent, and so she crossed to the door and opened it a crack. Her guard stood on the other side. He couldn’t be more than sixteen and still had that gangly look of youth about him, but he carried a sword across his back all the same. He gave Izzy a respectful nod.
“Lord McRae requests yer presence, my lady. We are ready to move out.”
“Move out? Move out where?”
“Lord McRae says to tell ye that he is going to escort ye to Dun Saith today.”
Izzy stared. Dun Saith? McRae was going to take her to Dun Saith? To the very place she’d been trying to get to ever since she’d arrived in this time?
“I...um...what?” Izzy stammered.
The lad cleared his throat. “Lord McRae says to tell ye—”
“I heard you the first time!”
“Right. Well then, if ye are ready, his lordship and his retinue are ready to depart.”
For an instant, Izzy considered slamming the door in the lad’s face and locking it. But if McRae really was taking her to Dun Saith...
“Alright,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice steady. “I’ll come.”
The courtyard was a flurry of activity as she stepped outside. Men were readying horses, adjusting girths and checking stirrups on saddles laden with travel gear. A large cart sat waiting off to the side, two sturdy horses hitched up front.The cart was open-topped with large wheels—not quite a farm cart and not quite a carriage—but something in between.
Servants rushed about, fetching spare boots and blankets, stuffing food into leather saddlebags. Izzy ignored all of it, looking around frantically for Magnus. She couldn’t see him.
“Where’s Magnus?” she demanded of her guard.
Before the lad could answer, the doors to the keep swung open and Lord McRae came hobbling out, leaning heavily on a cane. He made his way over to Izzy.
“Ah! Ready to get going? Ye will ride in the carriage with me. Much more comfortable for a lady.”
Izzy crossed her arms. “I’m not going anywhere without Magnus.”
McRae sighed heavily but signaled to one of his men. A few moments later, Magnus was led out from one of the side entrances. His hands were bound by coarse rope and two of McRae’s men flanked him, swords at their sides. He was led over to a large carthorse, so tall that its back was level with Magnus’s chest.
Izzy took a step towards him, but her guard’s hand on her arm held her back.
“Magnus!” she called, her voice echoing around the courtyard. “Magnus!”
He looked up at the sound of her voice. His eyes met hers across the distance. His complexion was pallid underneath a sheen of sweat and his hair was disheveled, hanging in battered curls around his face. But it was his eyes—empty and desolate—that made Izzy’s insides ache with dread.
She watched as one of McRae’s men helped Magnus onto the horse, his bound hands making it difficult.
On McRae’s signal, two pages hurried forward with a stool carved from dark oak and the guards pushed her towards the carriage. One of them offered his arm and in a daze, Izzy climbed onto the seat, then twisted around to look at Magnus.
He did not look at her, instead staring straight ahead and acknowledging nobody. Using the stool, McRae clambered painfully up beside her and settled himself onto the seat. One of his men brought a cushion which the lord put behind his back and a blanket which went across his knees.
McRae smiled at Izzy. “Ready, my dear? Then on to Dun Saith!”
The convoy began moving, rumbling out of the gates and onto the dirt track that passed for a road. Izzy lost sight of Magnus in the press and craned her neck over the heads of the riders, trying to catch sight of him.
“My, my, he really has tied ye into knots, hasnae he?” McRae observed.
The lord seemed to be in a good mood, in stark contrast to last night. There was a sparkle in his eyes and a quirk to his mouth.
“What do you mean by that?”
